BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Southwest -- St Dominic Church (630 E St, SW)

DC -- Southwest -- St Dominic Church (630 E St, SW):

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Description of Pictures: Established by Southwest's Irish Catholics in 1853, this 1875 Gothic church features a 250-foot spire. Today it is one of a handful of churches to survive Southwest's urban renewal.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Wikipedia Description: St. Dominic Catholic Church (Washington, D.C.)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

St. Dominic Church is a parish of the Roman Catholic Church, established in 1852. It is located in Southwest Washington, D.C., in the Archdiocese of Washington, and is administered by the Order of Preachers, more commonly known as the Dominicans, in the Province of St. Joseph (Eastern).

Location

The historic parish church and priory are located at 630 E St SW in Washington, near the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and L'Enfant Plaza, and three blocks south of the National Mall. The nearest Metro station is L'Enfant Plaza Station.

History

Origins

St. Dominic Church was built on land held by Catholic families or institutions since at least 1735. The land was owned by widow Ann Rozier Carroll, a relative of Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Carroll remarried to Benjamin Young, Commissioner of Crown Lands. Although Maryland was founded by Catholic Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore as the first English colony in America permitting religious freedom, the English government took over Maryland's government following the Protestant Revolution in 1689. Under English rule, Benjamin Young lost his post when he became Catholic. The family lived at a manor house with a private house chapel on what is now G St. SW between 9th and 10th St. near present day L'Enfant Plaza.

Benjamin Young's son Notley Rozier Young inherited the family property which included much of what is now Southwest DC. He married Eleanor Digges, and after his first wife's death, married Mary Carroll, sister of John Carroll, the first bishop in the United States. The property passed to his five children: Ann, Eleanor, Benjamin, Nicholas, and Notley Jr. In particular, Square 466, where St. Dominic Church was later built, passed to his namesake son, Rev. Notley Young, Jr. S.J., a professor of philosophy at neighboring Georgetown College, through whom the property passed to Georgetown College. In 1853, Dominicans purchased the parcel to build a parish from Georgetown for $5055.

Until the church was built, the Dominicans stayed with and said Mass at the residence of George Mattingly. The householder's grandfather, Robert E. Mattingly, a judge in the District of Columbia, recounted that "people attending would stand and kneel out into the street during the Mass." George Mattingly, originally of St. Mary's County, Maryland, was superintendent of the Norfolk Steamboat Company, and later donated the stained glass window of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A further family connection to the Dominican order came when Nicholas Young married the sister of Rev. Edward Fenwick, O.P. who in 1805 founded the St. Joseph's Province, the first Dominican institution in the United States.

St. Mary’s Chapel cornerstone

The church's southern entrance contains a relic of the first Catholic chapel built in Washington, D.C. This is an engraved dark sandstone which was the cornerstone of St. Mary's Chapel, a.k.a. "Barry's Chapel," built by James Barry and dedicated in 1806. Barry's Chapel stood at F & 10th St SW under the present day Interstate 395 highway.

Founding

St. Dominic Church was founded in 1852, organized by Rev. George A.J. Wilson, and opened on March 19, 1854. It was set in an area of the city known as "The Island" because, at that time, a canal ran where Constitution Ave. is today which connected the Potomac and the Anacostia Rivers.

As the congregation grew it was recognized that a new sanctuary was needed to hold all the congregants. This new church was dedicated on June 13, 1875 by Most Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley, Archbishop of Baltimore.

After President James A. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, St. Dominic's joined other local churches in an "Appeal to Heaven" in praying for the president with Rev. Fr. Rochford delivering a sermon denouncing the assassination and praying for the recovery of the president.

On March 12, 1885, the interior of the church was destroyed in a fire.

Consecration

On March 12, 1885, the interior of the church was destroyed in a fire. The fire broke out shortly after 10 A.M. in the boiler room on the west side of the church basement. It spread into the church above, eventually engulfing the altar. The church's engineer, Mr. Florence McCauliff, housekeeper Miss Kate Duffy, and Officer Burns of the nearby First Precinct Station House rushed to the sanctuary to save articles from the fire. They did not leave until they were driven out by the flames. Officer Burns sustained serious burn injuries to his hands and wrists, but the three were successful in removing everything of value from the altar.

The fire brigade succeeded in extinguishing the flames before the church was completely destroyed, but broke holes in the roof and stained glass windows in the process. Somber and tearful parishioners gathered outside the burning church. At 2 P.M., when the fire was finally extinguished, they walked into the ankle-deep water inside and carried out everything they could move. In all, the event caused an estimated $50,000 worth of damage to the church, including the total loss of a $2,000 organ and the destruction of a $1,000 stained glass window over the main entrance. Members of the local community—both Catholics and non-Catholics—banded together to raise funds, and rebuilt the church in a remarkably short period of time.

Urban Renewal

Southwest Washington's population dropped by a quarter between 1920 and 1930 and the Federal government designated Southwest "blighted." In 1945, Congress established the D.C. Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) under the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act. Thus "urban renewal" began in Southwest Washington. Goldie Schneider, owner of a hardware store at 716 Fourth St, SW, challenged congressional authority to declared blighted areas eligible for demolition in "the public interest." Goldie's son Joseph H. Schneider, president of the Southwest Businessmen's Association, litigated the case all the way to the Supreme Court, but lost (Berman v. Parker). More than 4,000 families were displaced when their homes in Southwest Washington were demolished. At the time, the Most Rev. Philp Hannon, diocesan chancellor, and representative to the Federal City Council threatened legal action if St. Dominic Church was not appropriately compensated for confiscated property. U.S. Rep. Aime J. Forand (D-RI) introduced a bill to amend the parish's 1856 charter to allow the church's civil corporation to receive compensation at the contemporary value of the property, rather than the cap set at its charter written over a hundred years before.

The construction of Interstate I-395 and its 6th & 7th Street ramps razed the St. Dominic Priory, School, and Convent.
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